Pages

Friday, December 21, 2012

Warm-Up-Your-Winter Blog Tour: Excerpt & Giveaway with Caris Roane

Happy Friday everyone! Today I'm super excited to welcome author Caris Roane who has stopped by on her Warm-Up-Your-Winter-Blog-Tour.

Ms. Roane is promoting her latest book in the Guardians of Ascension series, Gates of Rapture (don't be fooled by the winged heroes on the covers...it's not what you think!) and has a little background on the book to share with us, along with a teaser excerpt.

What makes this tour even more awesome? There are a bunch of fantastic prizes to be won throughout the tour so be sure to check out all the stops. So lets get onto the good stuff...

Hi, everyone! I want to thank Romancing the Dark Side for having me today as part of my WARM-UP-YOUR-WINTER BLOG TOUR. On most of the blogs on this tour, I’ll be revealing excerpts from the sixth book in my vampire series called, GATES OF RAPTURE (12/24). I created the tour with the hope that you might get to know my Guardians of Ascension, who are my most beloved winged vampire warriors. I know the covers have wings on them, but the books aren’t about angels AT ALL…just vampires…with wings. I also have goodies for you to win, details to follow!

GATES OF RAPTURE is the sixth installment of Guardians of Ascension and features Warrior Leto, a famous, ancient Warrior of the Blood, six-six, long straight black hair, piercing blue eyes, and built to battle death vampires for centuries and drive the ladies crazy! Major yummy! Romantic Times Magazine gave GATES OF RAPTURE a 4 ½ Star, TOP PICK review! I couldn’t be happier!

Today’s excerpt comes from the opening of chapter seven. You’ll notice that I start the chapter with a proverb that comes from a Fourth Ascender, named Beatrice, known for her wisdom. Beatrice has even counseled Grace over the previous several months. All of the chapters of the Guardians of Ascension novels open with a poem or a proverb or sometimes an excerpt from Beatrice’s memoirs. As for the excerpt, you’ll get a glimpse into one aspect of this paranormal world that I call ‘deep mind engagement’. The italicized words in this excerpt indicate telepathic communication. But Leto’s purpose in being inside Grace’s mind is to open up her blue obsidian flame power, a concept I’ve been developing over the course of the last three novels. Grace’s power, once opened, will allow her to participate in an obsidian flame triad. See what you think about Leto’s delve into Grace’s mind…

To
set a course and stay the path

Sets
the angels of heaven to rejoicing.

Collected
Proverbs - Beatrice of Fourth

Chapter
Seven

Grace stretched
out on the bed and folded her hands over her stomach.Leto joined her.

Ready? He sent.

She smiled.“Absolutely.”

Leto
was a powerful vampire and within seconds he had pushed inside her mind.She could feel him at the outer
boundaries of her thoughts, seeking, finding his way.

She took deep
breaths and made sure that all her mental shields lay flat.

Leto chuckled,
but she wasn’t sure if it was audible or within her mind.His presence was like warm water, very
soothing.That surprised her as
well.He was so physically strong
that she had been certain once inside her mind he would feel like a bear
pushing around and foraging for things.Instead, his presence reflected the gentleness and kindness of his
character.

You seem to
be thinking very hard, he sent.

Oh,
sorry.Have I made it impossible
for you to find my obsidian power?Yes.I’m blocked at every turn.

She forced
herself to relax and once more lowered her shields.He moved through her mind back and forth, searching her
thoughts and memories, hunting.

Grace,
I can’t seem to locate the seat of your power.

Marguerite
said that her power was deep within her mind, down a long tunnel.

I’ve been
through your mind.There’s nothing
there that I would call a tunnel, just your memories and a sense of who you
are, your thoughts.But I don’t
see a tunnel or an opening of any kind.

You don’t see
anything?No glow of light?

Nothing.

Both Marguerite
and Fiona had spoken to her of long tunnels at the end of which were the
vessels that contained their power.Fiona’s had been filled with gold light and Marguerite’s with red.Marguerite had also told her that for
whatever reason, these aspects of power were very sexual in nature and that
they had strong sheaths that had to be broken to release the power.

Yet apparently
Grace didn’t share the same kind of structure.Where do you think it could be, Leto, if not within my
mind?

What about
your soul? You have to admit that you’re unique in our world, Grace.Among all these powerful ascenders, you
have always charted your own path, followed your own passion, served your
communities in different ways.Essentially, you lead with your soul and you’re able to see into the
souls of others.

I think
you’re right and I can sense what you would need to do to reach my soul.But
the truth of it frightened her.

What’s
wrong?I can feel that you’re
afraid.

She would have
to open herself up as she had never opened herself up to anyone in the entire
course of her life. In essence, Leto would know all of her secrets and there
was at least one that still haunted her.

* * ** * ** * *

I hope you enjoyed the excerpt! I’ve had an extraordinary time creating and writing this series! Let Guardians of Ascension be a new journey for you. GATES OF RAPTURE releases on December 24th.

To Learn More about Gates of Rapture and to read the opening
chapter:CLICK
HERE!!!

I was ten when I first watched an old movie version of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE and loved it! Movies led to books, which led to writing and after a good long while, publishing. I wrote sweet Regency romance for Kensington for 19 years and recently fell in love with paranormal, although I’ve always had a thing for vampires. I currently write paranormal romance for St. Martin’s Press but I self-publish as well. Building an online platform has been an enormous but rewarding challenge. I think all the changes in publishing will alter how authors approach the business going forward and I for one am thrilled to have so many options.

Giveaway provided by author

Here are the giveaway details (all international with appropriate
compensatory prizes as needed):

On each stop of the tour, I’ll be
giving away the same awesome collection of prizes as listed on the Rafflecopter
form, so be sure to stop by each blog on the tour for a chance to win at each
blog.Be careful to follow the
directions on the Rafflecopter form at each site.And be very careful of the dates!

The
contest at each site will last 3 days only, and those dates will be listed on
the Rafflecopter form as well!!!

The Grand Prize Drawing - VERY IMPORTANT:to be eligible for the Grand Prize drawing of the
Nook with Glowlight, you must leave a
comment at the bottom of this blog!(And for more chances to win the Nook, you can go to every site on
the tour and enter that many times—totally up to you!But comments must be left!)The
grand prize drawing will be selected by random.org in the following
manner.

On January 18th,
three days after the tour ends, I will enter the number of blogsites into the
random number generator, which will deliver up the winning site.I will then go to the winning site,
count up the comments one by one, and enter that number into random.org.Random.org will then provide the Grand
Prize winning number matched to the comments on the winning blogsite.This means, that if you travel
to all the blogs on this tour, you can enter the GRAND PRIZE contest on every
single blog you visit by leaving a comment at each blogsite!The Goodies as listed on the Rafflecopter form are :a $10 gift card to Barnes & Noble (or similar
for International),a replica,
antique typewriter key bracelet that spells ‘dream’,a signed copy of ASCENSION (the first novel in the Guardians
of Ascension series), Romance Trading Cards and bookmarks.

The Grand Prize
drawing for a Nook with Glowlight, will take place on January 18th,
three days after the tour officially ends!

Hi, Everyone,Happy Holidays! I hope all your shopping is done for the best season of the year. Uh, I still have a little left to do, but at least I know what I want and where to find it with some assurance I'll be okay, lol!

Be sure to work the tour backwards and forwards. I designed it that way with new goodies to win at each site and backwards so that you could enter the Nook drawing as many times as there are blogs on the tour!

Hi, again, everyone!It's great to see you're enjoying the tour. What I've learned recently is just how much readers enjoy the excerpts, which is why I've included an excerpt in almost every post!

Today, I reorganized my office, which is one of my favorite things to do. I bought a new desk - Christmas present to self - and last night I got the computer and everything all set up. I'm hoping it will make some magic for me and start writing books all by itself...a Christmas miracle, lol!

Authors & Publishers

If you are an author or publisher and have a book you'd like me to review or promote, please contact me! I'm also open to hosting guest posts, author interviews and giveaways. For more information, please view my Review Policy page.